THE Trojan horse is through the gates now. The red carpet was rolled out for it. For two days, the people have danced around it, chortling to each other about what a glorious beast it is. ''One billion dollars,'' they exclaim, as if the words themselves are some sort of magic formula, certainly not to be lampooned, like that other popular mantra of the day, ''William and Kate''. The new television deal is the AFL's royal wedding.

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Media become shy on this topic because many in the industry have television deals, free-to-air and pay, and the rest claim their subscriptions on tax. I'm as guilty as any.

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Even as AFL fans coo and fawn over this horse parading so splendidly before them, perhaps one of them should take a moment to look it in the mouth.

Posted this on March 17, but given the number of times I have had to refer to it in the last month I thought I may as well post it here for easy reference:

The Demons have several problems. A couple, which you mention, are the transition and the youth/experience. The Dees' footy department have taken a major gamble by letting Bruce & McDonald go. They are banking on the young blokes coming through with an eye to next year (not 2011), but if Melbourne struggle to get their hands on the footy this season this will be held up as a root cause and the natives will get mighty restless. With that in mind it has been interseting to see Bailey & Schwab quietly massage Melbourne fans' expectations downwards. Another issue, which Gerard Healy & Mark Stevens mentioned, is the ability of good sides to pick apart the Demon defence. The way Essendon did it is similar to what Geelong (both with Thompson in the coaches box; and now three weeks ago with Sean Wellman providing inside oil) used to do: that is, spot up short targets in space just inside the 50, which is similar to a basketball team opening up the keyway by hitting threes. Draw opponents up the ground and you open spaces in behind.

My personal concern is size & aggression. Ever since John Northey left Melbourne have played "pretty" footy when they are on, but have not looked like winning when they are off. Why are they off? Because opposition coaches man up on Melbourne and force them into mistakes. Melbourne have barely won a match in the last 19 seasons where the other side has also played well. This is because Melbourne have lacked grunt under Bailey, Daniher, Balme & the two stand-in coaches. Until Melbourne realise that footy is about big blokes knocking over big blokes they will continue to struggle in big matches, simply because the opposition will knock them off the footy, block their running lines, scrag them into places where the footy doesn't go. This is why there will be games this year where Melbourne cannot get their hands on the footy at clearances because they will get muscled off the ball. Melbourne, despite Jones and Moloney's undoubted strength (McKenzie is important but might have OP and Gyzberts has not played enough footy) will sometimes get belted in close.

Malthouse, Sheedy, Roos & Matthews all understand that footy is a contact sport and that the biggest baddest sides usually win big matches. Go back through the years and you will almost universally find that the teams that win premierships do so on the back of big players, a solid defence and fierce man on man aggression. Northey knew that, Balme and Daniher never really embraced it, now it is up to Curley Bailey to instill in his players big game winning grunt.

Julia Gillard thought she would spring a surprise on Prince Charles by giving him a Mansfield Eagles football jumper because Charles had gone to Timbertop, a Geelong Grammar campus, which is near Mansfield:

THE Mansfield Football Club has made Prince Charles its number one ticket holder after Prime Minister Julia Gillard presented the Prince with a Mansfield Eagles jumper after a last-minute race to get it to London.

Upon hearing this on 3AW this morning, I put out a tweet to Mansfield Footy Club:

@MansfieldEagles Serious question. Were the Mansfield Eagles ever called the Mansfield Demons?

@AfterGrogBlog @mansfieldeagles changed from demons in 1998 when they entered the GVFL. Shepp united were already the Demons

Thanks, Roger.

Even if Charles remembered there was such a thing as the Mansfield football club (he attended Timbertop for eight months in 1966) he would not remember the blue & gold jumper since Mansfield used to be the Mansfield Demons and wore the red & blue jumpers of Melbourne.

Gillard should have given, well, panic-rushed around the world to Charles a Mansfield Demons jumper, although Charlie was probably comfortable receiving an Eagles jumper on the same day that the Eagles pumped the Demons at Subiaco.

When I first got Foxtel back in January 2000 programs generally had just one ad break per hour consisting of promotions for other Foxtel programs; for instance, were you watching the Simpsons, you would get an ad for the History Channel, a sport and The Simpsons. Several years later the ad frequency had increased to every 15 minutes. Now the ads appear roughly every 11 minutes and are full blown "retail opportunities" as Martin Brundell was wont to say when it was time to interrupt the grand prix. Try an experiment: flick around your Foxtel channels and see how often you lob on a station when there is an ad on. This happens for two reasons: one) there are more ads, derrr; and two) Foxtel subsidiaries puts ads on differrent channels at the same time to stop you flicking, just like the FTA stations.

Obviously the ads increased as Foxtel sought to pay for increased programming costs as it purchased more product. It was also loss leading. Foxtel was prepared to drop money as it tried to attract subscribers to cable television just like a drug dealer tempting a potential junky. "Go on, try it. A little taste won't hurt."

Foxtel is now set to shell more than half a billion dollars for the rights to just about all the footy. Where does it find this enormous chunk of change if it is not able to increase subscriber numbers? (It would be interesting to know how many new subscribers signed up for Foxtel when it had the footy from 2002 to 2006.) Stands to reason they will have to increase their advertising revenue. Betting promotion will increase. Cross promotion, too. There will also, no doubt, be an add-on cost for subscribers to access the Footy Channel. And then there are Foxtel's disguised ads: the pre-match half hour filler.

It is already mooted Foxtel will have ads during play for the four matches per round they will simulcast with Seven, while it is unlikely they will have ads for the other (soon to be) five games. The way Fox handles this twin coverage will also be interesting; how will the simulcast matches with ads compare with the straight to Fox matches without ads. With the aid of an imaginative mind, that dichotomy prompts another question: will Foxtel ever have ads on their non-simulcast matches?

Seven, and to a lesser extent Ten's, coverage of AFL today reminds me more than a little of the current political climate in Canberra. Trying so hard to be all things to all people that they end up standing for little and not pleasing anyone much.

That's Foxtel's advantage. It knows its market is serious hardcore football fans, and caters accordingly. Though, it has to be said, the sort of things for which we're now grateful should be a given for any network.

Like live coverage of games, for starters. Like no advertising breaks after every goal, so you can actually see the score replayed and analysed by the special comments men. Like panel shows that actually talk about football and not themselves.

I'll have to pay. But at least I'll get to see what I should, and know that I'm watching it on a station that appears to genuinely love the game as much as I do, not just as a potential ratings boost for its other programs.

Foxtel has always provided solid footy coverage. They don't have any great commentators (the pool of commentary talent is depressingly shallow), they don't employ any whizz-bang effects, but, as Rohan says, Foxtel treats footy as the main event, not the garnishing. Whether it stays that way is another matter.

All that and I have not mentioned sports viewers' least favourite two words: 1) official; and 2) broadcaster.

The reclusive spy novelist is finally letting a biographer loose on the skeletons in his past, reports Zoe Brennan.

It could have been a scene straight out of a John le Carré spy novel. Graham Lord, a competent tabloid hack, had been touting his synopsis for a book around London publishers. The document was confidential – it contained salacious details about a famous author’s personal life. It plotted out a thrilling romp through his mistresses, wives, loves and losses – and his work for the secret service. Nothing would be left to the imagination, a publisher would be mad to turn the book down.

As soon as I saw that Eric Bana was commander of the Romulan spacecraft, I knew Kirk and Spock's victory was in the bag. No matter what the film, no matter what the plot, no matter what the level of competition, Bana is a guy who was just born to finish second.

Oh, and hello to you, too, Jim Schembri:

Bana, as usual, is a warm and charismatic presence. So if you haven't seen the movie [Hanna], and you're looking forward to it, trust me on this one: it's worth the price of admission.

As for the male lead's ultimate fate, I don't want to spoil the ending, so let's just put it this way: for Bana to make it through a movie from beginning to end would be just great. It would make such a nice change.

So, with the intent of exploring both issues - spoiler culture and online behaviour - I decided to create a online event. I wanted to become the scourge of the Twitterverse as I led the hordes down a merry trail of cryptic messages and misdirection.

I ignited the firestorm by writing two Scream 4 reviews, one with genuine spoiler, one without. The latter ran in print, filed on the morning of last Wednesday week. The one containing the spoiler went online in the afternoon, but only for a limited time. Once a critical mass of online outrage had been stirred that would sustain the Twitter storm independently, the online version was altered to correspond with the print version.

Should you happen to be looking for a good DVD set for your next gifty, look no further than the very funny I Didn't Know You Cared, a British sit-com set in Yorkshire which aired in the late 70s.

From left to right: Robin Bailey, who you may remember as old judge Graves in Rumpole; John Comer, who, in common with Jack Hawkins, had his last role dubbed because of throat cancer; and Stephen Rea, the transvestite's friend.

Margaret Schroeder, the Irish immigrant and single mother played by Trainspotting's Kelly Macdonald,

I hesitate to tell journalists what to write. But Lorelei really should have written In the Electric Mist's Kelly Macdonald, or No Country for Old Men's Kelly Macdonald, or State of Play's Kelly Macdonald, even Gosford Park's Kelly Macdonald. Not rubbish Trainspotting's Kelly Macdonald. Guess I will have to put it down to generational differences.

Still, Boardwalk Empire goes very nicely. And yet again I kneel, face Manhattan, and say a quick prayer to HBO.

A LEADING media analyst believes Channel 7 would be sacrificing up to $400,000 in advertising revenue a weekend if forced to show football live. Fusion Strategy managing director Steve Allen said Seven can make as much as $20,000 from each extra minute of advertising in its delayed football coverage.

When forced to show games live it cannot squeeze extra ads into the telecast between goals.

"The difference between Better Homes and Gardens and the AFL is that Better Homes is profitable and the AFL is not.

Networks such as Seven and Ten consistently lose money on their football telecasts, but being a football network helps with cross promotion and general ratings appeal.

When I first read the following article I thought "pushed back 10 minutes" meant the Seven telecast would be delayed by ten minutes, which is not exactly live, and which would have been a monumental piece of skullduggery. But then I realised it meant the games themselves were to be pushed back 10 minutes, which apparently is a piece of skullduggery - at least according to Caro:

FRIDAY night football would be televised live every week for the first time and pay TV operator Foxtel would get to show finals live under a landmark $1 billion deal being negotiated between the big networks and the AFL.

As the deal moves towards its ambitious $1 billion price tag, it has emerged that Seven is close to a compromise with the league to make all Friday night telecasts live - in return for match starting times being pushed back 10 minutes.

In what could prove to be a controversial change among fans who attend matches - particularly families with young children - Friday games would be shifted from their current 7.40pm start to 7.50pm.

Andy Dollars & his three amigos will have done a sensational job if they manage to get the TV networks to go live as well as cough up the famous billion dollars.

Still, the ink is not yet dry. It remains to be seen whether Friday Night Footy is absolutely live as opposed to almost live. There's always The Delay. The TV stations will not want to lose listeners to the radio broadcasts, so a little time-shift tweaking is likely to happen as the TV network tries to scramble the radio & picture feeds. If you don't want to listen to the ads, you can always investigate the effectiveness of a delay-o-tron or IQ it.

If you saw the highlights of last night's Richmond -v- St Kilda match you would have seen Jack Riewoldt smack his head into the deck, get up with jelly legs, be assisted from the field, shamble down the race to see the doctors for a concussion test, then re-emerge to crack the shits at the Tiger medical staff for not letting him return to play.

Whether Jack's tantrum was warranted is worthy of debate. Should he have carried on like a pork chop? Should he have sucked it up and accepted the medical verdict? How bad was his concussion? Could he have continued to play without impairment? How much residual damage is he likely to incur, if any? Was he in fact fine and cracking the shits with a clear head as he thought the medical staff were over-reacting? Was he totally addled to the point where he was oblivious to his dummy-spit? All fair questions which could have been debated on the 3AW pre-match when they discussed last night's match. Instead Matty Richardson jumped in with an alacrity that suggests he may have been previously worded up by the Tigers. I paraphrase:

"Jack's reaction was understandable in the circumstances, since emotional and angry responses are classic symptoms of concussion."

This was followed by a blithe acceptance from the other members of the AW footy panel and the debate ended right there. Richo, Riewoldt's friend and former team-mate, had neatly shut down the discussion via a statement of fact.

Now, I am no doctor, so following Dr. Richo's diagnosis I sought a second opinion from my local internet. Signs and symptoms of a concussion may include:

Headache or a feeling of pressure in the head

Temporary loss of consciousness

Confusion or feeling as if in a fog

Amnesia surrounding the traumatic event

Dizziness or "seeing stars"

Ringing in the ears

Nausea or vomiting

Slurred speech

Fatigue

That list was from the Mayo Clinic and several other sites failed to list "emotional and angry responses" as classic symptoms of concussion.

That is not to reject Richo's medical expertise. One site listed irritability as a symptom, while Wikipedia mentions "crankiness" and "displays of emotion that are inappropriate to the situation."

But at least one question came immediately to mind: how often have you seen players blowing up after copping a concussion?

The AFL are, allegedly, looking to push the price for the TV rights from $750 million to $1 billion. Currently marquee games are on delay: Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. Yet the AFL want an extra $250 million as well as have the TV stations alter their current programming to run the matches live. Does this not smack of cake and eat it, too? Can the TV stations make up the extra dosh by moving from delayed to live broadcasts?